Orioles continue AL East dominance with 7-2 win over Blue Jays as surging Austin Hays homers twice
TORONTO — The Orioles’ outfield has been a carousel of who’s hot and who’s not this season, with playing time shifting frequently depending on which players are swinging the bat well.
On Monday night, each of their starting outfielders were locked in as Anthony Santander, Colton Cowser and Austin Hays combined to drive in six of the Orioles’ runs in their 7-2 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
Hays, who has five hits in his past three games, hit his first two home runs of the season off Blue Jays starter and former Oriole Kevin Gausman. Santander took the right-hander deep as well for his 11th of the season while Cowser finished 1-for-4 with an RBI double off the wall in left-center.
“I’ve been confident since I came off the [injured list],” said Hays, who missed 20 games with a hamstring injury. “Been swinging it really good, I swung it good through my rehab so it’s just starting to show up now.”
The Orioles (38-20) are 9-2 in their past 11 games, having scored five or more runs seven times.
Grayson Rodriguez had one of his best starts of the season, holding Toronto to two runs (one earned) on seven hits and zero walks with four strikeouts. Coming off a 10-strikeout game in which he gave up four runs in a loss to the Boston Red Sox, Rodriguez didn’t generate as many whiffs but was at his best with runners on. He stranded three and held the Blue Jays to one hit with runners on second or third base, lowering his ERA on the season to 3.28 through 10 starts.
“Really just trying to not punch anybody out,” Rodriguez said. “Obviously, you want to hunt strikeouts. Last outing, fastballs played really well so the strikeouts were there. Tonight, there was a lot of early contact and when they’re giving me that early contact for outs, I’m going to take it to allow me to try to go as deep as I did.”
The game marked the major league debut for infield prospect Connor Norby, who went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. He did turn a slick double play in the sixth, fielding a deflected line drive off Rodriguez’s glove and flipping it to Gunnar Henderson. Manager Brandon Hyde substituted infielder Ramón Urías for Norby in the field to begin the bottom of the seventh.
“Nice to get his first, I’m sure, his first start and his first few at-bats out of the way and he’ll be back in there tomorrow,” Hyde said. “But cool to see him make his debut and it’s nice for his first to get a win.”
With the Orioles’ bullpen taxed from a heavy workload over the weekend, Rodriguez kept his pitch count low enough to stay in the game until two outs in the seventh. He struck out outfielder Kevin Kiermaier on his 86th pitch but Hyde opted to turn to setup man Yennier Cano with runners on the corners. Second baseman Davis Schneider then lined out to right field to end the threat.
“That’s his best start of the year,” Hyde said of Rodriguez, noting the right-hander got ahead of 22 of the 27 batters he faced. “No walks into the seventh inning. Total command. That was the best command I’ve seen him have and really it’s from the third inning on last start — third through the sixth last start — carried into this start and was just absolutely fantastic.”
Cano remained in the game for the eighth and put the Blue Jays down in order for a clean outing against the heart of Toronto’s lineup. Urías, playing on his 30th birthday, then tacked on another run with a solo homer in the ninth off Blue Jays reliever Ryan Burr. It was the Orioles’ fourth home run of the game, which tied their season high set Saturday against the Tampa Bay Rays and April 11 in Boston. Keegan Akin pitched the ninth to seal the victory.
Baltimore’s win continued its success against the American League East, improving to 12-4 in divisional games to tie the Seattle Mariners for the best intra-division record in MLB. The Orioles, who are 44-24 against divisional opponents since the start of 2023, will look to extend their active streak of consecutive AL East sets without a series loss to 20 on Tuesday when ace Corbin Burnes gets the start. The Blue Jays have yet to announce who will take the ball opposite him.
Orioles at Blue Jays
Tuesday, 7:07 p.m.
TV: MASN2
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM